Walk
into A Clearing at the Center as if entering
a mandala or a medieval labyrinth. Notice that Fictions, thepaintings on
the outside walls depend on a sense of narrative as they take their titles from
the writings of Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentine. The series Diccionario
includes pages from a Spanish Dictionary from 1945 that belonged to my
grandfather.

The Girls live at the center. I paint my own body to imprint image on silk. Those that hang call up Fog, Mist,
Twilight, and Whirlwind.They converse
with Chinese landscape painting or stone-age fertility figures. Some mention ceremonial or funerary
robes. The tattered filaments resurrect quipu,
knotted strings used by the Inca for memory.

Those with iron bases portray transformation.Each names a woman or nymph who, according to
mythology, goes through a metamorphosis to become something else—a tree, that pool
of water, a spider.With antique wire
cage hoop skirts as armature these
Girls explore limitation and boundary.
The concept of cage becomes
fundamental, whether it be physical or emotional.Ultimately, we return to the word ribcage and to the sense of body at the
core of these sculptures. Yet, realize
that transformation also offers release and the possibility of change.